System aims to uncover whether unsupported crossings had no human help and verify accuracy of record-breaking feats

“Polar exploration,” said Apsley Cherry-Garrard, the companion of Capt Robert Falcon Scott, who later found the Antarctic explorer’s body, “is at once the cleanest and most isolated way of having a bad time that has yet been devised.”

But while previous generations of polar travellers devised their own rules for their gruelling journeys, a new certification scheme has been launched after growing controversy over allegedly inflated claims of exploits at the Earth’s two poles.

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At least 45 people were killed and some 150 injured in a crush at the gathering of ultra-Orthodox Jews in northern Israel, where tens of thousands had convened.

(Image credit: Sebastian Scheiner/AP)

At least 45 people were killed and more than 100 injured when a stampede broke out at a crowded Jewish festival in northern Israel on Thursday night, turning one of the first public celebrations in a country emerging from the coronavirus pandemic into a mass tragedy.

Family say it has been ‘incredibly emotional’ marking what would have been his 101st birthday

Captain Sir Tom Moore’s family said they felt “incredibly emotional” on what would have been the war veteran’s 101st birthday on Friday, but were pleased to see his legacy going strong as they launched a fundraising weekend in his honour.

The family kicked off the Captain Tom 100 Challenge at Lord’s cricket ground on Friday morning, encouraging people to raise money for charity by attempting feats based on the number 100.

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Despite a difficult childhood, Martha Koome looks set to become Kenya's first female chief justice.

Move comes as Kremlin is expected to outlaw opposition leader’s nationwide political movement

Russia’s state financial watchdog has added Alexei Navalny’s network of regional headquarters to a terrorism watchlist as the Kremlin appears poised to outlaw the opposition leader’s nationwide political movement.

“Navalny headquarters” appeared on Friday on a searchable database of terrorist and extremist groups published by the state watchdog Rosfinmonitoring, which allows the government to close its bank accounts.

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Our differences came down to how much flesh was on screen. How many other seemingly massive divides can be crossed with a small tweak?

Recently, my mum recommended a television series on Netflix called Bombay Begums. It follows five spirited women of various ages as they fight for happiness in male-dominated modern Mumbai.

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He came back from the hairdresser looking all edgy and teenagery, signalling the start of my years as an embarrassing dad

It’s been very exciting getting haircuts, hasn’t it? I genuinely feel like my car goes faster and better when I have filled it up with petrol, and that’s how I felt when I got my hair cut: I was immediately more confident, I had a swagger in my step and I was ready to go back out into the world with my levels of sexiness restored to their usual intensity.

Our children have had to suffer the most. The experience of getting them to sit down for a trim has been akin to trying to settle the rowdiest of sheep for shearing, with the sheep constantly bleating about wanting to get back on to their PlayStations. After the trauma of that, they go to a mirror and collect more evidence that we, as parents, are the enemy. I can admit this now: every haircut we have given the boys in the last year has been absolutely unacceptable, and I would like to take this opportunity to apologise to them.

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The actor, writer and People Just Do Nothing star on the things that make him laugh the most

A Mitchell and Webb sketch about football; as a non-football fan I related to it so much. The sentiment of it is: football, no one really ever wins; it just keeps going.

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Language is political, and the English suppression of local placenames should be resisted in Wales, just as in Ireland

It has been well over a year now since I last laid eyes on Yr Wyddfa, the mountain that presided over my childhood, and which the English call Snowdon. I could draw the shape of that peak with my eyes closed. Jan Morris called it a “dream-view” and an “ideal landscape”, writing that “it is as though everything is refracted by the pale, moist quality of the air, so that we see the mountain through a lens, heightened or dramatised”.

I daydream about Yr Wyddfa, mostly of swimming in the clear, cold river that we would walk up to on hot days – a secret spot, known only locally (when I Googled the name of the pool, which is Welsh, nothing came up, and I will keep it that way). Less romantic is the last time I climbed the mountain, where at the summit the inevitable queue awaited us. Yr Wyddfa is a victim of its own popularity, though you could argue that it has kept the surrounding mountains wonderfully empty of tourists.

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NI agriculture minister, a young Earth creationist, thought to have been key figure in toppling of Foster

The Northern Ireland agriculture minister, Edwin Poots, is expected to replace Arlene Foster as leader of the Democratic Unionist party (DUP) after winning swift endorsements to his candidacy.

The Stormont assembly member is so far the only candidate to declare and appeared to gain momentum on Friday.

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Police in India's capital ask for more cremation sites as a deadly second wave sweeps the country.

In Enniskillen for a long time, the unionists kept winning. Now the feeling is of Britishness being lost

Covered up and boxed in a storage vault in the town of Enniskillen, two historic oil paintings gathered dust. King William III commissioned the portraits of himself and Queen Mary after he routed Catholic forces in the Battle of the Boyne in 1690, a turning point in Irish history that established Protestant ascendance.

Unionists revere King Billy, also known as William of Orange, as a hero who saved their settler ancestors. The portraits used to gaze down from Enniskillen town hall, a reminder of their link to the crown, until the council voted to remove them in 2002.

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RNLI and firefighters to teach staff what to do in an emergency, as customers return after lockdown

People working in pubs, cafes and other venues near to rivers are to be given special training to help stop people drowning amid concerns for customers flocking back as the Covid lockdown eases.

Firefighters are being trained by the RNLI to go into businesses and show staff how to get people out of the water safely. The move comes after two people died in the Thames within days of each other last week.

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Thousands join a call for US First Lady Jill Biden to restore the garden to its "former glory".

The Guardian’s picture editors select photo highlights from around the world

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Small number have died after being vaccinated, mostly having caught virus before dose could take effect

A small number of people vaccinated against Covid have been admitted to hospital with the disease and died, researchers have found, but most were frail and elderly and caught the virus before the jab could take effect.

Scientists say their findings are reassuring. They bear out the conclusions of trials of the vaccines in use in the UK, which showed that the jabs are highly effective but do not protect everyone.

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Dara Herman Zierlein


Taking action individually and globally.

The post Battling the Rising Tides appeared first on The Nation.

The ex-England rugby player praises the Queen's stoicism at the "beautifully done" funeral service.

Irish comedian Maeve Higgins moved to the U.S. with a visa for artists with "extraordinary abilities." But the myth of the "good immigrant," she says, perpetuates harm and discrimination.

(Image credit: Marla Aufmuth / TED)